Southwest Airlines Proclaims Wi-Fi Is On the Way, Fleet-wide in 2012

For whatever reason, I’ve been following in-flight Wi-Fi pretty closely the last few years. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was on the first commercial flight that had Wi-Fi. The AA flight attendant spilled water on my laptop and nobody told me I needed an adapter for my MacBook. It was joyous. But that was Aircell’s Gogo service, which I’ve used on numerous occasions with Virgin America and Continental.

Anyway, Southwest announced that they had hooked up with Row 44 and their satellite-based services last February. They’ve been testing the service on four planes since, but not much else has been said.

Via the corporate blog, Southwest announced on Friday that the airline would outfit their fleet starting in Q2 of 2010. They will begin with 15 planes per month and eventually get up to outfitting 25 planes per month. If the latter holds true then Southwest’s entire 540 aircraft fleet will be Wi-Fi ready by the end of 2012.

No word on price, but Southwest promises that “just like your fares, it will be a great value. You can count on it!”